The first of my Galentine's Day prompts! I haven't finished them all yet, but I'll keep posting them throughout the month. The prompt - Agents of SHIELD/MCU - Melinda May, Natasha Romanov, Pepper Potts, and Maria Hill (or any combination thereof) talking about the children (not an age related term) under their care. - It kind of went in that direction, lol. Dedication: For vikingprincess. You, woman, are deserving of all the Galentine’s love. My very, very awesome friend, words cannot express. 1,180 words.

Title: Gal-entine’s - Now I’m Having FunAuthor: dodger_sisterFandom: The AvengersCategory: Friendship, General, HumorCharacters/Pairing: Natasha Romanov & Maria HillRating: PGWarnings: Mild swearing.Spoilers: None.Summary: It starts out a bit awkward, but then teenage boys and darts get involved and Natasha supposes it wasn’t such a bad idea after all.Word Count: 1,180 words.Date Written: 01/18/16Disclaimer: Everything herein belongs to Marvel. Except this story, which I wrote, for fun.Feedback: Bring it. dodger_sister / TheArtofDodger@comcast.netBeta’d: Nope.Author's Notes: Of all the Galentine’s Day prompts I received - in general and from vikingprincess - this is the first one I formulated a story for, the first one I sat down to write. Because let’s face it, these are my kind of ladies and my kind of outing.Dedication: For vikingprincess. You, woman, are deserving of all the Galentine’s love. My very, very awesome friend, words cannot express.

Natasha was putting on her little black skirt and red blouse, doing her hair up, putting on makeup.

“Do you have a date?” Clint asked, leaning in the doorway to Nat’s bathroom.

“Seriously?” and now he was pushed up off the door, standing right behind her. “You have a date with Maria Hill?”

“It’s not a date, it’s just a date. Like, friends, or whatever.”

“That’s a friend-date and that’s not what you said,” Clint told her, deflated now.

“Clint,” Natasha said and waited until she was sure she had his attention. “Fuck off.”

And then she pushed him, with one high-heeled boot, straight out of the bathroom and slammed the door in his face.

***

The bar was less smoky than Natasha was used too. Most of the places she did her jobs, ended up in trash-bars like this, they didn’t have smoking regulations. Here in New York City, it was a whole other story.

But even the lack of smoke can’t class this place up much, Nat thought.

Maria was already sitting at a corner table, dressed in a blue sleeveless blouse and a white prairie skirt, so unlike her normal attire that it took Natasha a minute to recognize her.

“So,” Maria said, sliding a shot of whiskey across the table to Natasha as she settled into her chair, “you come to this bar often?”

“Never,” Natasha told her, dryly.

“But you picked the place.”

“Under recommendation of an Asgardian God. Last time I listen to him about anything,” Natasha said, though it probably wasn’t true. Thor had a way of making people side with him even when they didn’t want to.

Maria was laughing when Natasha looked up from her disgruntled thoughts about alien-gods, a smile erasing the little lines of worry on Maria’s forehead.

“He is the kind of guy that would like a place like this,” Maria said and her pleasure at the situation made Natasha smile too, even if only a little.

They settled into silence while they sipped at the beer Maria had picked up for them, along with a small row of whiskey shots, never-mind if it was what Natasha wanted to drink. She figured she could get up and get something else, but she frankly didn’t care enough.

“So,” she said after a minute, “I don’t...usually hang out, or whatever. With girls, anyway.”

“Me neither,” Maria said. “Unless it’s old college friends and then there is a lot of lying and fake cover stories to keep up with.”

“I imagine,” Natasha said, because frankly all her old ‘college friends’ were probably dead. Or out to kill her.

“Just thought it’d be a nice change,” Maria said and shrugged, an awkwardness Natasha had never seen on her before.

“So, what do we talk about?”

“Boys?” Maria said and then ducked her head to hide the laughter pouring out of her.

“The only boys I know are the ones I work with and we are not talking about work tonight,” Natasha told her with finality.

“No work, agreed,” Maria said. “Then what?”

“Children?” Natasha asked.

“You mean ‘am I planning on having children’ or ‘our adult children we already have’?” Maria asked her.

“I mean those children,” Natasha said, gesturing to two boys who couldn’t be older than seventeen - clearly this place wasn’t that concerned with catching fake ids - who were standing over by the dartboard.

One of the boys was bent at the knees in front of the board, glass of whiskey balancing precariously on his head. The other stood facing him, mess of darts in one hand, a beer in the other, clearly about to make the mistake of his young life.

“But we can talk about our adult-kids too, if you want. Though I feel like that falls under the category of work,” Natasha told her, eyes still trained on the teenage boys.

“Coulson,” Maria mumbled, half into her beer.

“Barton,” Natasha added.

“Stark,” they both said at once, even as they slid out of their chairs and headed toward the teenagers, an unspoken connection they usually only found together at work.

“See, now this seems like a mistake,” Maria said to the boys and they both looked up at her as if she were their mother, catching them with pornography or beer in the basement hideout where they still kept their action figures and comic books.

“Exactly,” Natasha said and pulled a dart from the boy’s hand, pushing him gently aside. “If you’re going to do it, do it right,” and she turned so she was facing backwards, looking in the opposite direction of the dartboard, and threw.

The boy with the whiskey balanced on his head screeched - there was no other word for it - and the whiskey sloshed back and forth in the glass, even as Natasha’s dart landed a perfect bullseye over his head.

“No, no,” Maria said, backing herself up so she was a good twenty-five feet from the dartboard, “If you’re going to go for it, really commit yourself. It’s the only way to live,” and she smoothly caught the dart Natasha tossed her way and just as smoothly threw it, flying the twenty-five feet straight past the boy’s head - and the glass of whiskey balanced there - to slide in right next to Natasha’s own dart, centered perfectly in the middle of the number fifty.

Both boys’ eyes were round and they were frozen where they stood, so it was easy to slide the whiskey off the one’s head and toss it back, both smooth and raw down Natasha’s throat.

“See, this is the kind of downtime I like,” Natasha said.

“Oh yeah,” Maria agreed with her, plucking the beer from the other boy’s hand and draining half of it in one go. “Now I’m having fun.”

***

“You need a puke bucket?” Clint asked, toeing at Natasha’s arm.

Nat was asleep on the floor, a throw pillow under her head, clutching a wastebasket in her arms. Maria Hill was on the couch, a quilt tucked under her head, sound asleep even with her eyes half-open.

“Is for her,” Nat mumbled and made a half gesture toward the couch.

“Hill needs a puke bucket?” Clint asked in disbelief. “Damn.”

“Barton,” Maria said, as clear as if she was wide awake, though she still looked exactly as she had when Clint had come in the room. “If you don’t get the hell out of here in five seconds, I’m going to shoot you.”

It was probably true, given that her hand had just gone to the gun still strapped to her hip.

“Nat,” Clint started to whine.

“Clint,” Natasha said and waited until she was sure she had his attention. “Fuck off.”

Clint decided - wisely, one could say - that the best course of action was to back slowly out of the room and leave the girls to their business. Or their friend-date, as it were.

Friend date of awesome. :D I loved the dart throwing most of all, but also Clint's cameo, that was hilarious. Love love love!

Awww, thank you, bb! Had to have Clint in there somewhere, it's like an unspoken rule or something. Besides, the idea of him backing slowly out of the room upon seeing those two ladies passed out and still holding their guns - had to do it!! <3